Through her eponymous gallery, Paula Cooper has been conceptual art’s most steadfast champion for nearly 50 years. But unlike many of her contemporaries, the elegant Cooper has done it without clamoring for attention or headlines. Rather, she has quietly powered through with undiminished passion for the people she has represented: Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Sophie Calle, Zoe Leonard, Christian Marclay, Robert Gober, Rudolf Stingel, Kelley Walker, Mark di Suvero and Tauba Auerbach among them.

When she opened at 96 Prince Street in 1968, it was the first significant gallery south of Houston Street. “I went because that’s where the artists were,” she says simply. If she were a man, she might have been called bold or courageous; instead, people called her crazy. We all know how that story ends: Many dealers followed, the galleries piled up and by 1977 the formerly deserted neighborhood of SoHo was an art mecca. “That’s around the time dealers started hiring publicists,” Cooper says with a small smile. “Nobody did before, then suddenly so many galleries did. It was evolving into the industry it has become.”

When Cooper decamped to Chelsea in 1996, it was enough of a leap that this time even her own artists called her crazy. We know how that story ends, too.

Cooper’s classic New York dealer approach, one that places the artist first, began to seem almost quaint as art became a commodity and auction houses, business-savvy artists and aggressive big-box gallerists began to rule the scene. Some of her artists left, she left some of her artists. “What has always motivated me,” Cooper says, “is to be of help to living artists. Other rewards are living with and being intimate with the art. When it gets to be about money, that’s when it gets difficult.”

Cooper has weathered storms — one literal (Hurricane Sandy), as well as multiple recessions — ending up with a second gallery on 21st Street and a bookstore (with her husband, the publisher Jack Macrae) around the corner. “We’re no Gagosian, though,” she laughs. “We don’t have the same ambitions.”

Indeed, another Cooper mainstay is her reputation for unrelenting integrity. She mentions the painter Cecily Brown, who having left Gagosian after 15 years, will have a show at the gallery next year. “I didn’t steal her,” she adds emphatically.

At 78, Cooper still evokes the young woman, full of enthusiasm, adventure and grit, who sparked a revolution in contemporary art. “I love coming to work every day,” she says.